Wrong choices for cabinet
Malaysiakini.com
Mar 18, 2008
Joe Fernandez

Anyone can be in the cabinet not just BN members. Even you. Abdullah Ahmad Badawi should have appointed at least three non-politicians – professionals, technocrats, academicians and intellectuals - as full federal cabinet ministers including as ministers in the Prime Minister’s Department. MCPX

Abdullah should have also appointed at least three ministers from the opposition to the cabinet.

One of the blogger MPs from the opposition should have been made the Information Minister.

One MP from PAS should have been made Minister in the PM’s Dept and be put in charge of religious affairs and not just for Islam.

Another opposition MP should have been made Minister in the PM’s Dept and be responsible for the National Unity Department.

Mahmud Taib of Sarawak (not his son) and Joseph Pairin Kitingan of Sabah should be brought to the federal Cabinet. Otherwise, these two states will fall to the opposition in the next elections.

Abdullah didn’t do any of the above because he doesn’t know where politics ends and good governance begins. If he was smart, he would not have locked up the Hindraf leaders under the ISA just before the polls. Instead, he would have met with them and defused the situation. Not say he ‘has big ears’ and then tell them to go and see MIC President S Samy Vellu.

BN used to be a winners’ club because it would accept into its fold any opposition candidates who were victorious after a polls. This policy eventually destroyed the opposition because the people subsequently refused to vote for the opposition on the grounds that they would defect to the BN after winning.

Today, BN has become a losers’ club because it refuses to accept winning opposition candidates on the sacred grounds that they went against the BN. Meanwhile, the opposition has no qualms about accepting winning BN candidates into its fold.

This is likely to happen in the five opposition-ruled states and Kuala Lumpur because BN candidates have an insatiable appetite for ‘development projects’ to finance their lifestyle.

If 30 MPs from BN, ten each from Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak crossover to the opposition alliance, they would take over the reins of the federal government if the King refuses to consent to fresh elections.

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